Archive for 2013

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdamwas designed in the late nineteenth century by Dutch architect Pieter Cuypers. The function of the building was twofold: one part was the national museum, the other the gateway to the south ofAmsterdam.

Koica library is a project donated by the Korean International Cooperation Agency. It is a building intended for intellectual culture and academic training for the program “Villa de lasNiñas” of the Sisters of Mary, which aims to provide a comprehensive education to poor girls who mostly come from rural areas.

In 2011, Koblenz was chosen as the site for the Bundesgartenschau, a biennial horticultural show that drew 3.6 million visitors. Various structures were erected for the occasion, including a belvedere designed by Dethier Architectures. In addition to providing a lookout point, the belvedere has become a symbol of the city.

In the heart of Colombo, Sri Lanka, a lot surrounds a historic British-colonial building. In this country, density is not limited and the program quickly takes on an exceptional scale: 450,000 m² are planned for offices, apartments, a hotel, a cinema, and a commercial center. The challenge becomes how to successfully create such a massive program adjacent to a historic monument.

The brief: To create an Australian version of an English garden room at the rear of an existing Federation style brick house.

Planning strategyThe challenge of this design was to create a room with lots of glass that was still suited to the hot climate of Australia. We achieved this by reducing the glass in the roof to a reflective glass triangular skylight and the careful placement of external glass in relation to the direction of the sun.

The Katreinetoren in Utrecht is the home base of NS Stations, the department of the Railway (NS) that develops and services railway stations in the Netherlands. The 15 stories 55m high tower is built right on top of Utrecht Centraal, the biggest railway station in the Netherlands. The entrance is positioned conveniently in the Central Hall!

WHAT IF BY SOLVING ONE IMPORTANT LOCAL ISSUE WE COULD PREVENT ANOTHER ONE FROM HAPPENING?

Taichung City Cultural Center is a project wich aims to present the possibility of using local features to protect from the very location itself turning limiting factors into interesting project features.

Our client was initially inclined to build a new house. After much consideration, however, he decided to partly renovate his three-storey family house, and use it as a residence for a two-generation family.

Highly motivated by our personal motto US IS MORE, our main concern is to create spaces that give people the right stimuli, positively influencing their homeostatic levels. This is a concern based in the notion that we´re the product of an evolution. As such, we focus on the knowledge of the human body, mainly on the brain response to exterior stimuli.

We believe that if we can correctly control the stimuli that enters the brain, we can influence the state of mind of the user, making him happier.

The school, with a planned gross floor area of about 700 m2, had to be placed on a very small site, of just 630 m2, situated beyond on an existing sports court that was intended as the school’s playground. The surroundings were formed by a football ground to the west and, to the east, by a sector of single-family dwellings separated from the school plot by an alleyway of just three meters wide.